Years ago my teacher Yukio Takamura taught a seminar which touched upon this topic.

During the lunch break a young karateka wrestler, I ll call Donny, loudly dismissed Takamura Sensei s teachings as antiquated nonsense.

In response to this pronouncement Takamura shook his head and chuckled while fiddling with his shoes.

Donny, rather brash and full of bravado turned to Takamura Sensei and said, " Now don t get me wrong old man, your stuff is fun to watch and all but your jujutsu is no match for my karate and wrestling. Takamura flashed a devilish smile at Donny and said, " Okay, show me ".

Takamura responded " No, you were talking about my jujutsu, not his.

I want you to show me. " Rather pensively Donny strolled out onto the dojo mat with Takamura Sensei as a hushed silence overtook the room.

At first Donny appeared reluctant to do anything but when he noticed that all eyes were on him he revved up his courage and proceeded to execute a very nice double leg takedown, climbing up on what at first appeared to be a rather startled Takamura Sensei.

Takamura had secreted the shoelace in his sleeve and then executed a simple choke with it.

He assumed that this was a contest with rules and that Takamura sensei was unarmed.

The most interesting thing to me about this whole incident was that Takamura had deliberately pulled the shoelace from his shoe, placed it in his sleeve in plain sight and not one of us noticed.

Now I m sure that some MMA proponents will roll their eyes at this interlude and remark that it proves nothing. They will say venues like Pride and UFC prove you must do everything in budo well and that Takamura Sensei with a shoelace couldn t defeat the likes of Matt Hughes or Sakuraba.

Njegov ucitelj, " deda " kojeg vi spominjete, danas pokojni Yukio Takamura, takodjer je bio osoba velikog ugleda i reputacije u Japanu.